Here’s an excellent submission (Request for Tax Rule Changes) to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

This was written by *Toronto lawyer John Richardson, ***University of Toronto professor Dr. Stephen Kish and (this is huge!) **U.S. attorney Willard Yates. Mr. Yates’ involvement is significant because he retired from Office of Associate Chief Counsel (International) (ACCI), Internal Revenue Service after 31 years of service.

The 32 page comprehensive submission deals with everything from problems of citizenship based taxation to the financial and psychological costs of renouncing US citizenship. Despite the complexity of issues covered, it is quite easy to understand for most of us who have been around this issue for a while (although newbies may very well find it overwhelming and frightening).

The report is also posted at citizenshipsolutions.ca , John Richardson’s Canadian website designed to counsel US citizens abroad who find themselves having to live in a FATCA and FBAR world.

George, I just want to say this to you. As I sit here with my 4 year old daughter watching Dora the explorer…… Someday I’ll tell her about the people here on Brock and people like you and I will tell her we were not afraid to speak our minds and stand up and protest something that threatens the lives and futures of innocent people. Hang in there George, we all are working double shifts here to educate and help everyone through this. I feel strongly, we will prevail and so will justice………

I just read the whole paper. I must say, the writers did one helluva great job on it. Thank you!

Having said that, we must continue to hold the line and march on. Call me a cynic, but I sincerely believe the elected bureacrats in Washington will not get off their asses until the number of renunciations / relinquishments gets high enough to embarrass them into taking action. Until then, it will remain all too easy to just pigeon hole papers like this one.

We must continue to keep the pressure on in order to break the inertia. Everytime the number of renunciations goes up, the plight of America’s expats gets press coverage. Granted its not always good or accurate, but press is press and the narrative has recently started to shift in our favor.

With regards to this, I think IBS should give serious consideration to openly promoting renunciations / relinquishments as not only a solution for ending expats’ misery but also as a legitimate form of civil disobedience against an abusive government and homeland citizenry that just plain don’t deserve the benefit of having a thriving Diaspora which would be actively promoting US interests abroad if the circumstances were different.

Instead, they still view expats like Chuck Schumer does, as traitors and convenient targets to scapegoat.

Once again, that was one helluva great paper. Now we have to get them to put it into action which will be no easy task as no senators or congressmen exist for the expat constituency as a whole.

FTW

PS. I am glad to see that Bill Yates is finally starting to get it. He’s still got a ways to go, but his eyes do seem to be opening. FYI Bill: there are plenty of Americans living and working in countries like Mongolia, Khazakstan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Georgia (not Atlanta), Ukraine, Albania, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Liberia, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Haiti, etc, etc to name a few. Expats living and working in these countries usually do their banking and retirement investing elsewhere. I know, I used to be one of them.

And Bill, just in case your wondering what kind of Americans would live and work in the third world (I know you homelanders are suspicious), think aid workers, missionaries, security contractors, journalists, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, and even some bankers. Americans from all walks of life are scattered around the world to include some pretty conflict prone / unstable places.

The bottom line is that any half measures short of RBT are only bandaids and should be avoided. And whats so hard about RBT? Just change the term “US person” to “US resident” and its done. Whats so hard about that?

I cannot for the life of me understand why the U.S. WILL NOT change its taxation law to RBT, like that of the rest of the world. In my mind, it would solve so much. To not do so, to retain CBT, is nothing but punitive. Is there any other reason for CBT that can be explained to us?

I am thankful I have renounced and have my CLN, but one remains in my family – entrapped into the U.S. absurdities.

I am particularly sorry for your son’s situation. I am glad it was mentioned in the paper because it may help shed some more light on this entire “theatre of the absurd” horror show that the US is putting everyone through.

I saw the post was a “must read”, but I could NOT read it at the time. However, I am back to it, and just wanted to add my appreciation for the work and the effort that went into this submission. In addition, John used the Citizenship argument against the FATCA IGA in a recent oral testimony to the New Zealand Select Committee on implementing FATCA. He was excellent in his presentation, opened a lot of eyes of MPs, and this coupled with all the help sessions he is conducted in Canada has to be admired and commended.

@JakDac
Forget “fair”. None of this is fair. Taxation without representation, taxation without getting anything for it, health care which we have no benefit from and have to pay healthcare in our own country, double taxation, draconian penalties, CBT ( which the rest of the world has abandoned)… etc etc.
Even Nina Olson, the head of the taxpayers advocate Service wrote a report on the unfairness of this all. Nobody is listening, and judging by the newest taxation ideas in Obama`s head which are coming out now, America is in big trouble with debt.

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